Effects of economic and symbolic threat appeals in right-wing populist advertising on anti-immigrant attitudes: The impact of textual and visual appeals

Author(s)
Desiree Schmuck, Jörg Matthes
Abstract

Right-wing populist parties portray immigrants as economic or symbolic threats in their political advertisements by constructing a moral divide between the good ordinary people and bad immigrants. Yet, it remains unclear how these different threat appeals contribute to the formation of anti-immigrant attitudes among citizens and what role visual elements play in producing these effects. A survey-experiment with a quota sample of 471 participants reveals that, overall, symbolic threat appeals exert stronger effects on anti-immigrant attitudes than economic ones. When presented via text alone, only symbolicnot economicthreat appeals increased anti-immigrant attitudes via the activation of heuristic processing such as the reliance on negative stereotypes or feelings of anxiety, in particular among lower-educated citizens. When visuals were present, both types of threat appeals enhanced anti-immigrant attitudes among citizens across all education levels based on heuristic processing. Additionally, high image-text congruency induced cognitive argument approval resulting in higher anti-immigrant attitudes.

Organisation(s)
Department of Communication
Journal
Political Communication
Volume
34
Pages
607-626
No. of pages
20
ISSN
1058-4609
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2017.1316807
Publication date
2017
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
508007 Communication science, 508014 Journalism
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Communication, Sociology and Political Science
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/effects-of-economic-and-symbolic-threat-appeals-in-rightwing-populist-advertising-on-antiimmigrant-attitudes-the-impact-of-textual-and-visual-appeals(ce5ba590-e212-4942-b75b-d659dce7b413).html